[Lord Xeb]

Hello all, this guide is for all of you who have hissing or crackling coming from your sound card. This is caused by the other parts in your computer emitting EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) which interfers with parts on your sound card. This can be reduced or even completely stopped by using EMI shield which you can make at home.

Although there are better methods than mine, this is the cheapest and most readily available. Both mine and solo's methods would work.

For all of those who thing this will not work, try it out for youself. It works wonderfully and got rid of nearly all the static I use to have.

Supplies you will need:

Aluminum Foil
poster board (or card board from a cereal box)
super glue
Double-sided foam tape
tape (duct tape or electrical tape)
fine tip permanent marker
scissors

Sorry about some of the pics being poor!
Step 1:
Lay your sound card on your poster board or cereal box, and trace out its outline.
You should get something like this when your done

Once you are done outlining your card, cut it. Then you need to make 3 of the same cutouts.

Step 2:
Lay out one of the paper/card board cut outs onto the Al foil and trace it out.

cut out 3 sheets of aluminum foil:

Step 3:

Glue 2 sheets of aluminum foil together then glue those two sheets onto one of the sheets of paper/card board

Then glue another sheet of the poster board/cereal board on top of the Al foil glued board. Then glue the final sheet of Al foil onto that board.

You will have something that will be like this:
poster board > Al foil > Al foil > poster board > Al foil

Step 4:

Take your double sided foam tape (DSF for short) and put pieces on the back of your card like this:

Then lay the Al foil poster board thing down onto the DSF so that it covers then entire back side of your card.

Once you are done, put some tape over the aluminum foil so that it cannot come into contact with any other electroics and shorting them out

From here on out is optional!
Step 5:

Cut out one more piece of poster board and glue to sheets of aluminum foil so you have a sheet that will be like this:
Poster board > Al foil > Al foil

Step 6:
Stack your DSF on top of each other to pile it up and serve as a support for the Al poster board thing

Step 6:

Tape up your card so that no Al foil is exposed and could possibly short out other components in your computer

DONE

You now have some EMI shielding on your card which will help get rid of that annoying hissing static-y sound (if not eliminate).

 

[lozanoa11]

I think this has been done before just with out pics. Nice job anyway.
If i have a factory shield do you think this would benefit any or will the factory one be sufficient? I would do it to the back of the card but it is to close to the northbridge heatsink.

 

[Lord Xeb]

:/ I think that the factory one is superior but I am not sure. You could do this to the back of your card if you can move one slot over.

 

[lozanoa11]

unfortunetly this is not possible. the only other pci-e slot i have is right under my gpu and would be the same and cut off air to my gpu, and if i put it in my other pci-e x8 slot it turns my gpu down to x8 also (stupid mobo) and i lose like 2 fps in games.

 

[Lord Xeb]

That blows....

 

[Poppinj]

pretty cool post. How hot do sound cards get though? I cant imagine they get to terribly warm but either way this will kill most of the airflow they would have gotten.

 

[soloz2]

this has been covered numerous times before and while I applaud your effort and ingenuity, there is an actual product designed for audio applications that is much safer than tin foil.

ERS paper sandwiched between two 1/8" layers of craft foam, grounded to the case. Pictured is an X-Fi XtremeMusic card with full modifications performed (replace all output caps, op-amps, power supply cap and ERS shield)

~It is very important for the shield to be grounded, in this case one corner of the insulation between the ERS and card is cut away so the ERS touches the bolt attaching the I/O shield to the card PCB

I use the same method for the shield on my Prelude and a few others use these shields although I haven't made one in some time.

 

[Lord Xeb]

My method is already safe because I have used it on my old SIIG card for almost 3 months before I put new fans in my PC, of which I had to sacrifice my sound card for better air flow. I made sure that the tin foil is seperated from the card so it does not come in contact with it, which is a combination of poster board and foam tape.